


Chemistry

by howelllesters



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Fluff, M/M, Nerd!phil, Popular!Dan, honestly they're both cuties in this fic, it's only fluff, sporty!dan, there's a tiny bit of self-doubt but no real angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-08
Updated: 2015-08-08
Packaged: 2018-08-24 04:40:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,683
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8357623
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/howelllesters/pseuds/howelllesters
Summary: Based on this prompt, ‘sporty!dan is lab partners with computergeek!phil and magic happens.’





	

The way Phil saw it, this could have gone a whole lot worse. Yes, he was on the front row, which was less than ideal, because their Chemistry teacher this term was notorious for having zero tolerance for mobile phones, so no secret gaming, but that also meant no one else wanted to sit on the front row with him, leaving him with the desk all to himself.

No one to do labs with, no one to share textbooks with, no one to copy his answers… this was good. It wasn’t that Phil didn’t like people - well, for the most part - it was just that none of his friends had opted for Chem, so they were all rather cruelly sat in the main hall on a free period right now, leaving him alone with a class in which he knew hardly anyone.

In hindsight, Chemistry probably wasn’t the best choice for someone wanting to go into the computer industry, hopefully videogaming. Maths or Physics might have been a better choice, even Engineering, but Phil just really, really liked Chemistry. He liked things exploding, or catching fire, or going up in smoke, or turning _purple_ , or-

His daydreaming was rudely interrupted by the door slamming open, a breathless kid with floppy brown hair and an apologetic grin on his face appearing in the frame.

“Sorry I’m late, Miss,” Dan Howell announced, shrugging his bag on his shoulder a little more and catching the eye of some of his friends at the back of room, greeting them with a salute and a quirk of a smile.

“Don’t make a habit of it…” their teacher sighed, barely glancing up at him. Phil empathised; he wasn’t thrilled to be back either.

“Dan,” the boy supplied, and she nodded in acknowledgement.

“Next to Lester, front row.”

Phil’s stomach dropped. No, please no. He was just Phil, quiet, unassuming, computer-nerd Phil, who tended to gravitate towards like-minded people, and spent a large proportion of his time trying not to get in the way of people like-

“Hi!” Dan whispered eagerly to him, plonking himself down on the seat. “I’m Dan.”

“Phil,” he replied quietly, not bothering to point out that he already knew his name given his earlier introduction, plus there was the fact that Dan had been in his classes for five and a half years now, and oh, the small matter of Dan having smiled at Phil one time at a year eight school disco, prompting a sexuality crisis which lasted him well into year ten.

Good times.

“Have I missed anything?”

“Five minutes on how playing with fire can sometimes be dangerous,” Phil said softly, jumping when Dan cracked up.

He hadn’t really intended that to be funny. Was Dan laughing at him? That was all he needed. Phil had never had a rough time at school, never had to face bullies, but he was excruciatingly aware of his social ranking, or rather, his lack thereof, and he’d fended off the odd cruel comment from time to time. He sorely hoped the object of his unrequited affections for four years now wasn’t about to change all of that.

“Got it,” Dan snickered, but Phil thought, hoped, it maybe wasn’t in a mean way. Like he’d perhaps actually made him smile?

“A lot of the practicals will be in pairs this term,” their teacher began, capturing the class’ attention again after Dan’s arrival.

The thing with Dan was, he couldn’t just sneak into a classroom the same way Phil could. Phil could probably throw a chair and no one would bat an eyelid, because he was just about invisible, whereas people started whispering if Dan so much as sneezed.

Star football player but a dab hand at pretty much every other sport going, clever but not in the geeky way like Phil, funny and nice and so, so attractive. Boys like Dan got made team captains in P.E. lessons, and boys like Phil were left until the very end, captains arguing over who had to suffer through them being on side. Phil was good at sitting in front of a computer screen for too many hours a day, and Dan was good at everything. Dan had hair that always fell the right way and always caught the light the right way, he had a smile that made girls blush and a dimple that made them giggle, and Phil, well Phil just had deep black hair that never sat right, and weirdly huge blue eyes.

“Which one do you want?” Dan asked with a nudge of the elbow, sending electricity shooting through Phil’s arm.

“Huh?” he replied eloquently.

“Stats or notes?” Dan laughed, while Phil just blinked at him owlishly. “For the practicals, one of us is going to record all the data and the other is going to take notes, like observations and stuff. Save time.”

“Oh,” Phil replied, continuing to show off his extensive vocabulary. “I don’t mind.”

“Neither do I,” Dan smiled. “We could-”

Phil looked at him expectantly, sending a little reminder down to his stomach to not do the flippy thing while he was trying to hold a conversation with Dan about _science notes_ , but Dan turned away, having been hit in the head with a scrunched up ball of paper.

Coming to his senses, Phil discovered that their teacher had briefly left the room, slipping out while Phil was thinking about how Dan’s eyes matched his hair. The class had predictably descended into a riot, because sixteen and seventeen year olds were really mature, and now Dan was engaged in a paper war with the rest of his friends, which kind of seemed to be everyone in the room but Phil.

He waited for a moment, wondering if Dan was going to continue his thought process, but when it became painfully apparent that he’d momentarily forgotten Phil’s existence, Phil turned back to his notepad, scribbling down everything he’d missed on the board, then flipping ahead in his textbook to read up on the experiment they’d be carrying out tomorrow.

Five minutes later, their teacher burst through the door and proceeded to yell until she was red in the face, ending the game rather abruptly. Everyone turned back to face the front silently, while Phil just stared intently at his paper, only able to mull over the fact he and Dan hadn’t chosen who was going to be doing what.

For a brief moment, the briefest of all moments, Phil had let himself hope that when Dan took a seat next to him, it could signal the start of a good friendship - he wasn’t about to kid himself that he had a chance in hell of ever winning the affections of Dan straight-as-his-fringe Howell - but it seemed he’d been right to scold himself for that thought.

He and Dan were going to spend an awkward term as lab partners, and then it would be summer and Phil would be dropping Chemistry anyway, and when they went back for their final year of sixth form, Dan would occasionally glance his way before eventually just going back to being unaware of him, the same way it had always been.

Except for the time he’d smiled at him.

Phil was okay with that. He was used to it. There were worse things in life than having a small friendship group and never quite fitting in with the rest of his peers. Phil just wasn’t a paper fight kind of person, and it was probably for the best that Dan had already realised that.

From the corner of his eye, to the background music of their teacher winding down her rant, Phil saw Dan flick something. Wishing he could roll his eyes without it being obvious, Phil went back to studying the blank page in front of him, but something landing on his textbook made him jump out of his skin.

A tiny strip of paper had been scrunched up into a ball just big enough for Dan to shoot over to him without attracting the attention of their teacher. Phil stared at it for a moment, then sneaked a look over at Dan, who was innocently looking at the clock. Hoping he wasn’t about to make a fool of himself, Phil unravelled the paper ball to find a single smiley face drawn on it.

Dan’s head moved a fraction towards him, and his mouth pulled up into a tiny smile, which Phil finally returned. The brown-haired boy beamed in response, and then his attention was fixed on the front of the classroom once more.

Phil glanced down at the piece of paper again, and even though it definitely hadn’t meant as much to Dan as it did to Phil, he was still going to slip it inside his pencilcase for the rest of the year.

—

“…and we need one more drop of that. Are you ready to take notes?”

“Ready,” Phil said seriously, pushing his giant safety goggles up further on his nose and watching their concoction bubble away over the Bunsen burner.

His pen was poised ready to scribble the reaction down frantically, but when nothing happened, he glanced up at Dan with a questioning eyebrow. Dan was kind of just staring at him, smiling in a way that seemed like he didn’t even realise he was doing it.

“What?” Phil asked curiously, putting down his pen to question his lab partner. “What?”

“You do this thing where you stick your tongue out the side of your mouth when you’re concentrating,” Dan informed him, and Phil blushed. Of course Dan was picking up on something stupid he’d been doing. “You do it when you laugh too. It’s cute.”

Phil thanked all of the gods from every online universe he was a part of in that moment for putting down his pen, because he was pretty certain he might have dropped it had he still been holding it.

Dan had just… he’d called him cute. Dan had called Phil _cute_. And yeah he’d probably meant it in a puppy dog way but still. If his cheeks had been pink before, they were now a fantastic shade of scarlet.

“Thanks,” Phil responded lamely, underwhelmed at the answer but impressed with himself for at least being able to form words. “Shall we…”

With a nod and a grin, because of course Dan could keep his cool in situations like this, he dropped a spot of the chemical into the test tube, and Phil’s mouth popped open as the mixture turned bright blue.

“That was so cool,” he whispered, coming to his senses and writing down what had happened, sloppy handwriting missing the lines as ever, but Dan hadn’t had a problem translating Phil’s scrawl so far.

In fact, they made quite a good team Phil liked to admit to himself from time to time. His initial hesitance over the inevitable internal battle between disliking Dan for the type of person he was and for making Phil feel inferior in every single possible way, and also being a little bit crazy about him because his laugh was too loud and he was always a bit late and the dimple in his cheek got deeper when he smiled, and Phil had made him smile quite a bit over the last few weeks, that had melted away pretty quickly.

He was smiling right now, shaking his head at himself as he filled in the last few empty boxes on their data table - Dan’s handwriting was impeccable, putting Phil’s to shame even if he insisted that he could read it fine - and Phil was dying to know what he’d found so amusing.

Was Dan laughing at him again?

Phil’s stomach squeezed. He was still waiting for the moment that Dan realised he was just far too uncool to be socialising with, and maybe this was it. He’d gasped at a chemical reaction for goodness’ sake, if that wasn’t solid proof of having no life whatsoever, what was?

“Are you laughing at me?” Phil found himself asking, his voice hesitant but still solid. His eyes widened the moment the words fell out of his mouth, wondering what on earth had possessed him to say it.

“What?” Dan asked, looking up at Phil with the widest eyes, his expression a little hurt. “No. No, no why would I laugh at you? I just thought it was really sweet when you- never mind. No, I wasn’t laughing at you. Why would you think that?”

It appeared Dan had a tendency to ramble when he was a little flustered, and a tiny part of Phil was glad that the boy actually had the capacity to feel awkward at times, rather than just being perfect one hundred per cent of the time.

“Sorry,” Phil said worriedly, not liking how sad Dan looked one bit. “It’s just that everyone else does, so I kind of figured…”

He trailed off, not really needing to explain any further. He didn’t count being the butt of people’s jokes as anything too serious, but it still happened. He was used to it. Didn’t mean it was fun though.

“I’d never laugh at you,” Dan said solemnly, unconsciously leaning closer to him as he spoke.

Phil could feel his cheeks heating up again, but the bell for break rang and they both flinched. Whatever had just happened had been broken up, and Dan just flashed him a friendly grin and a nod.

“We good?” he checked, filling in the last few boxes from memory.

“Sure,” Phil smiled, not really understanding why it meant so much to Dan that they were friends, but deciding it was likely for their sake of their lab partnership.

Probably for the best, they both wanted to pass the class. It absolutely had nothing to do with Dan wanting to be friends with Phil, it couldn’t be, so he was going to keep squashing those thoughts right down.

By the time Dan looked up from his sheet to say something else, Phil had shoved his belongings in his bag and disappeared. Dan frowned, but didn’t think too much of it. He’d already guessed that Phil was incredibly shy, and though it made him adorable and loveable and a hundred other adjectives Dan had dreamed up over the last few weeks, it also made getting through to him ten times harder.

He wasn’t giving up though.

—

_yawn_

Phil felt the corner of a piece of paper prick his forearm and his head snapped down to see what it was. He caught the single word printed in black biro before the scrap was pulled away again and Dan artfully wrote something else while maintaining full eye contact with their tutor. She was droning on about particles or something - Phil had possibly zoned out, but he’d already read the chapter, so he had a vague idea of what was going on.

The paper nudged at him again, and this time he was half-expecting it, so his reaction wasn’t quite as obvious.

_you have got to get better at passing notes_

The 'got’ was underlined, and Phil’s lips quirked into a smile. He wasn’t sure if it was because Dan was passing him sarcastic notes, or the idea that Dan wanted, needed, him to get better at writing notes presumably to make a habit of this, but it made him happy.

_sorry_

Phil scrawled his reply while their teacher faced the board again, and slid it back over to Dan with his pinky finger. There was a pause and then a tiny, tiny sigh, and Phil had to desperately fight the urge to face Dan and read his face.

_you’ve also got to try passing interesting notes, idiot_

Phil had to bite his lip to stop himself from smiling as the paper was pushed his way again. Chewing his pen thoughtfully for a moment, Phil finally decided upon his next message.

_penguins can’t breathe underwater_

Apparently Dan then proceeded to have a particularly violent coughing fit, so dramatic that their teacher paused her lecturing to ask if all was okay. He managed to reassure her that he was probably going to live, his voice at a slightly higher pitch than usual, while all of his friends flashed him confused looks.

They were all familiar with Dan’s poorly disguised outbursts of laughter, so had he finally cracked? Was he just laughing to himself?

Phil stared straight ahead the entire time, smugness radiating from every inch of his body.

—

“Penguins.”

Phil jumped out of his skin.

Like every other day, he was eating his lunch in the library, getting a head start on some homework he’d been set in first period, hoping this would give him an extra half hour for gaming tonight. His other friends were scattered across the rest of the desks, enough space for them all to work but close enough that they could start geeking out over a new comic or game release when the time called.

The people that belonged in the library at lunch were people like Phil - pretty friendly, impossibly intelligent, and harbouring a nerdiness that just tripped over the line of being socially acceptable.

Certainly not people like Dan, who was currently sat opposite him, legs straddling the chair in front, looking at him with a raised eyebrow.

It took Phil a good minute to engage his brain, finally pulling himself together enough to push his notes to the side and recall their earlier Chemistry lesson.

“Do you not like penguins?” he asked innocently, and Dan just gave him the biggest smirk.

“So is this where you hide out every day? I’ve been looking for you for ages now, and I’ve only just thought to check the library.”

“You’ve been looking for me?” Phil asked, so stunned he barely registered everyone else watching them intently, Dan being the equivalent of an alien in this room.

“Yeah,” Dan said eagerly, and then seemed to catch himself. “To switch Chemistry notes.”

“Right, right,” Phil said hurriedly, resolutely looking back down at his exercise book. There was a reason he never got his hopes up.

“So have you done the homework?” Dan prompted after a moment, frowning as Phil seemingly just ignored him.

“I’ve started it, but I haven’t finished it,” Phil said dully, reaching into his bag and pulling out the right book, sliding it across to Dan.

Phil went back to writing, assuming Dan would give him a quick 'thanks’, let him know that he owed him, a debt Phil would never collect upon because he didn’t have a death wish, and then Dan would disappear with his book, it somehow finding its way back to him through a string of people that ensured they wouldn’t have to speak face to face.

He was used to the world of copying homework. He’d learned the hard way that it was easier to just submit than try to stand up for himself.

“Um, okay,” Dan said, sliding the book back over to him, a reaction so unexpected that Phil actually looked up again.

Dan looked confused, a million unasked questions in his eyes.

“Don’t you want to copy the answers?” Phil asked bluntly, and sadness flitted across Dan’s face briefly.

“No, I’ve done the first half too. I just thought you might want to work through the last bit together, since it’s about the practical and… never mind,” Dan said, speaking too fast and looking he regretted being in the library at all. “I’ll just do it later.”

“We can do it together if you want?” Phil said, so unsure of himself it sounded like a question.

He didn’t know why exactly he’d suggested that, because spending more one on one time with Dan was just going to keep reminding him of how weird Phil really was, but he couldn’t get the notion of one on one time out of his head. Dan had also looked strangely disappointed at the idea of Phil not wanting to work with him, and while he wasn’t about to let himself get carried away, at all, maybe he really did want to be better friends, and Phil could be okay with that.

Probably a fast track to a broken heart, but he could be okay with it.

“Do you want to do it now?” Dan asked eagerly, entire demeanour shifting in a second. “I have a free fourth.”

“Um, okay, same,” Phil nodded.

“Can we go back to the hall though? I haven’t had lunch,” and his stomach grumbled as if to highlight his point, Dan smiling sheepishly.

“You want to go and sit in the hall together? To do work?” Phil clarified.

There were about a hundred and one things wrong with that suggestion, but the most pressing was that Phil didn’t fit in at all with the group Dan usually sat with. They hogged the comfortable sofas and pool table near the kitchens, spreading out across the tables and spilling on to the paved area outside, while people like Phil were forced to sit like sardines with the rest of his friends, none of them able to hold a conversation over the music blaring out.

It was part of the reason why they’d all shifted to the library pretty soon into first term, and not only was Phil reluctant to go back to the noisy social hub of the sixth form, he was also surprised at Dan inviting him there.

Didn’t Dan have some sort of social status to uphold? Was he not aware of the fact that Phil could prove fatal to that?

“Yeah, if that’s cool,” he nodded, and clearly the answer was no, no he was not aware.

“Okay,” Phil shrugged. He could do it one time, Dan could realise the error of his ways, and he’d be back in the library by tomorrow. It would be handy to go over the homework with his lab partner anyway. “I’ll see you later guys.”

The rest of his friendship group, who had been watching the exchange in awe the entire time, just silently nodded at him, while Dan stood up, already heading for the exit. Phil shot one last look behind him as they left the library, his eyes wide as saucers. The rest of his friends were grinning, but also mouthing sentiments akin to 'what the hell?’ at him, and he just shrugged.

At least they’d all have something new to talk about tomorrow.

Walking down the corridors with Dan was an entirely new experience.

Phil was used to sliding against the walls, trying not to get in people’s way as he navigated his way through the crowds. His lanky height was a disadvantage, serving only to highlight his awkwardness, but Dan was pretty tall too, and he made full use of that.

Striding down the halls, people cleared out of his way, and Phil just trailed behind, enjoying the free run for once. Dan must have said hi to every other person they bumped into, and Phil wondered how on earth he knew so many people, before remembering that Dan could do _everything_ , and he had friends in just about every area of the school.

Was that why he was being friendly to Phil? Just infiltrating the computer nerd group ready to use them in the future?

“I didn’t really get question five, by the way,” Dan said, turning to face him for the first time since they’d left the library.

“Oh, it was pretty simple,” Phil said, blushing as soon as he realised he’d made Dan sound stupid.

“Ah, awesome, you can explain it to me then,” Dan grinned, apparently not noticing the slight. “But first… food.”

—

“Do you like ketchup?” Dan asked Phil, pausing in front of the condiments.

As far as Phil could tell, Dan’s lunch was actually a plate of chips, which didn’t seem particularly nutritious, but who he was to judge? He’d only had a warm sandwich, and the chips looked particularly appealing right now.

He hadn’t been entirely sure what to do when they’d entered the hall, so he’d just stayed close to Dan, probably irritating him to no end because Phil wasn’t actually buying any food. Dan was obviously a good actor though, because he hadn’t seemed fazed by it at all, keeping up a steady conversation the entire time they were in the tedious queue.

“Not really, prefer mayonnaise,” Phil shrugged.

“What is wrong with you?” Dan asked, feigning being horrified but grabbing a handful of each sauce. “Mayo is grim.”

Phil didn’t question it, but he was confused as to why Dan had picked up the blue packets if he didn’t like mayonnaise? Also how could anyone not like mayonnaise?

As they drew closer to the till, Phil’s heart started thumping. Were they about to go and sit with all of Dan’s friends? Would they laugh at him? Would Dan realise the colossal mistake he was making?

“Come on then,” Dan laughed, elbowing a spaced-out Phil.

Phil traipsed behind dutifully, and he didn’t miss the stares he received as Dan greeted the rest of his mates. They picked a spot a few metres away from the main group, a little further away from the speakers so they could just about hear each other.

Dan didn’t say a word before diving into his chips, and Phil felt something pull at his heart as he thought about Dan sacrificing hunger to hunt him down. Honestly, this was all Dan did to him at the moment. They’d been lab partners for just four weeks, and for the entire four weeks, Phil’s head had just been a mess.

Did Dan like him as a person? When he laughed at Phil’s unintentional jokes, wanted to pass notes, smiled at him for no reason, was that him wanting to be friends? That time he’d been having a fight in the corridor and been thrown into the locker right next to where Phil was stood, had it meant anything when he’d immediately abandoned the argument to check Phil was okay, that he hadn’t squashed him?

Did Dan want him as a friend? Did Dan want him as more than a friend? Was Dan just using him to get good grades? Was Dan squirting out a blob of mayonnaise onto the edge of the plate nearest Phil?

“Help yourself,” he finally said, nudging the plate towards Phil as he pulled his books out of his bag.

Phil blinked at the food for a moment, wanting to pinch himself. Nervously, he picked up a single chip and dipped it in the mayo briefly, then ate it so quickly he about swallowed it whole.

“Oh my god,” he choked, and Dan paused what he was doing to look at him, bemused. “That was hot.”

“That is generally how people prefer them,” he teased, and Phil blushed, ducking into his own bag to hide his flaming cheeks.

“So. Question five. Explain it to me. I’m so lost.”

—

It had been one week, and Phil had been eating at Dan’s table the entire time, pretty much in a state of shock.

Usually they just did homework together, but sometimes Dan would push his book aside and they’d just talk about other stuff, like music, or music, and sometimes music. Thing was, Phil’s main interest was playing online games and destroying kids in different countries in a zombie apocalypse, while Dan followed every sport going, and neither of them had a clue what they were doing in each other’s worlds.

So they talked about music, finding they had a similar taste, intensely discussing bands and debating favourite albums and songs. On Wednesday it had gotten so heated, Dan had stood up and plugged his phone into the speakers, demonstrating to Phil just how superior his song was. It had blared across the hall, and while everyone started twisting round to see who had chosen this noise, Dan had just grinned triumphantly at Phil, who had gone the colour of the beetroot in the salad they were sharing.

Another day rolled around, another Chemistry class. Phil had accidentally caused a minor explosion, which had Dan wiping tears away as they cleared up the broken glass together, but as the bell rang for lunch and Dan cocked his head asking if Phil was joining him, Phil shook his head.

“I haven’t eaten with my friends in a few days,” he shrugged, genuinely sorry to be passing up Dan’s offer but well aware that when this all eventually went south, when Dan got bored of him, he’d still need his friendship group.

“Oh, yeah, I get that,” Dan nodded, and Phil could swear he looked disappointed.

“I mean, you can join us if you want,” Phil mumbled, playing with his frayed bag strap, mostly making the offer just to be polite.

“Okay,” Dan smiled. “Let me grab a sandwich and I’ll meet you in the library.”

Phil just about managed to stop his jaw dropping, forcing a smile at his lab partner then scurrying away to try and breathe before Dan joined him.

“Is it okay if Dan eats with us today?” he asked shyly as he arrived at the library, and his small group of friends all smirked and nodded.

You didn’t need to understanding coding to realise that Phil was a bit mad about the school’s star football player, but it seemed Phil was the only one who didn’t realise that said football player was a bit mad about the school’s resident computer geek.

“I got crisps too,” Dan announced, sidling into the library and hopping down the steps to the tables on the level below. “Hope you like salt and vinegar.”

For some reason, Phil felt more nervous about Dan joining his friends than he’d felt joining Dan’s, but it turned out this fear was more than unfounded. Dan flashed his heartbreaking smile at each of them, learning their names and not moving on until he’d figured out where he recognised their face from.

Phil stared down at his squashed ham sandwich, suddenly feeling intensely guilty that he hadn’t even bothered to ask Dan who his friends were, let alone the friends themselves.

“So do you?” Dan asked, finally pulling up a chair next to Phil and sitting a bit closer than he needed to.

“Do I what?” asked Phil distractedly.

“Like salt and vinegar?” laughed Dan.

“Oh. Yeah,” he said lamely, and Dan raised an eyebrow at him, before dismissing it and opening the bag, offering Phil one first.

The rest of lunch was made up of stilted conversation, until finally Dan sighed and asked if Phil had a free fourth.

“Yeah, I do,” he said, making eye contact with him for the first time in half an hour.

“Do you wanna, go on a walk or something, I don’t know, get out of the building?” asked Dan. “We could go onto the field or something. It’s pretty warm out, grass is dry.”

Phil found himself agreeing before he’d really thought it through, and by then it was too late. Bidding an early farewell to his friends, he followed Dan out of the library, not missing the amused expressions all of his friends were exchanging behind their backs.

—

The grass was indeed dry, dry enough for them to flop under the shade of one of the trees dotted round the edge of the playing fields, scrunching up their blazers to sit on and dumping their bags in a heap.

Dan was stretched out, hands splayed in the grass behind him, never ending legs sprawled in front, while Phil sat cross-legged, hugging his knees close to his chest.

“What’s up with you today?” Dan asked, turning to face his lab partner with a worried frown. “You’ve been pretty quiet.”

“I’m always quiet,” Phil shrugged.

“Not with me,” Dan laughed, hurriedly clearing his throat before either of them could read into that too much. “No, come on, you’ve hardly even looked at me. What’s wrong?”

Phil looked at the grass, ripping a few stalks out of the ground just for something to do with his hands. He wasn’t really feeling a deep conversation right now. Other groups were sat on the field nearby, a football game was going on closer to the sixth form hall, and they could just about hear the strains of English lessons being taught through the open windows from the grey block of classrooms nearby.

“Why are you my friend?” Phil suddenly blurted out, looking up at Dan with something like fear in his eyes. “Why do you hang out with me, why do you hang out with my friends? Is it just because we’re lab partners and you want a good grade? Is it a practical joke? A dare? Because I’m just Phil and I’m not that exciting and we’re nothing alike, and I don’t really understand it, and it’s okay if there’s some sort of ulterior motive, just, just tell me please, because I’ll be fine with it, I’d just rather know.”

Every thought that had raced around his head since Dan had first passed him the smiley face that still sat amongst his pencils made its way out of Phil’s mouth, and Dan just gaped at him.

He didn’t think Phil had ever said that much in one go in the entire time they’d been talking.

Phil looked at him expectantly, waiting for his response. He was physically shaking, the little speech so out of character out of him, but he was determined to stay his ground and get a reply. He needed to know, or rather, his heart needed to know, because he really meant it, if Dan was just using him for a good grade or to have a laugh, that would be okay, he’d just prefer to- Dan was kissing him.

Dan was kissing him.

Dan’s lips were on Phil’s, and his hand was loosely draped around Phil’s neck, and he seemed uncertain but not unpractised. Phil kind of froze for a moment, and then just as he began to return the sentiment, Dan dropped back.

“That was my ulterior motive,” he whispered, letting out a nervous giggle.

Phil was full on staring at him, and his mouth was definitely hanging open, and he didn’t even care.

“You’re gay?” was the first thing he spluttered, and of every possible thing he could have said, he regretted that one the most.

“Yes? Maybe? I don’t know,” said Dan, scratching the back of his head and looking more vulnerable than Phil had ever seen. “I’ve been asking myself that every night for a few months now. Kind of concluded that I’d just figure it out if anything actually happened the way I wanted it to.”

“I’m really sorry,” Phil said, coming to his senses, apologising for the senseless comment.

Dan’s face paled at what he’d said, and suddenly his entire body tensed.

“Oh my god,” he breathed out. “Oh my god, you’re not- you don’t- oh Christ, I’m so sorry, I just thought-”

“No, no no no!” Phil yelped, realising what was going through Dan’s mind surprisingly quickly for once in his socially awkward life.

Without really thinking it through, Phil pounced back towards Dan, giving him another soft kiss, not caring if anyone saw because he was _kissing_ Dan, Dan who he’d fancied since year eight, who apparently wanted to kiss him back.

Pulling back almost instantly, in case Dan had magically regained the part of his brain that he’d misplaced, Phil hugged his knees again, not sure where they stood. All he knew was that his lips were tingling, and his heart was racing, and Dan was glancing up at him with kind of a smile on his face.

“I’m definitely… well, for you,” Phil reassured him, belatedly realising how strange that sounded.

“Cool,” Dan nodded, and then burst out laughing.

For once, Phil was certain that Dan wasn’t laughing at him but rather with him, and he started laughing too, eyes sparkling.

“So that’s why I hang out with you,” Dan shrugged suddenly, as if he were just continuing their conversation from before. “I’ve liked you for ages, but I never really saw you, so I just figured I’d get over it. But then we got made lab partners, and I mean, you were really, _really_ difficult to crack, but I figured I’d keep going for a while.”

“You’ve liked me for ages?” Phil asked, eyes wide.

“Yeah, kinda,” Dan huffed out nervously. “I mean, I smiled at you once in year eight, but you probably don’t remember that, and then I just never seemed to see you anywhere, but you know. Here we are.”

“Here we are,” confirmed Phil, and he was beaming. Dan had never seen him smile so wide. “What do we do now?”

“Well I quite liked kissing you,” smirked Dan, and Phil grinned.

—

“It’s really not that impressive when you do this,” Phil grumbled, pulling Dan’s sweaty football shirt off his head. “I don’t find it attractive.”

“The rest of the boys throw them at their girlfriends,” pouted Dan, grabbing his towel and heading for the showers.

“Yeah, and I’m sure they don’t appreciate having a sweaty top balled up and thrown at them either.”

“Well done for scoring the winning goal,” Dan said in a stupid voice, and Phil smirked once he was sure he was out of sight.

Phil staying behind in the changing rooms while Dan showered after a match had become a habit over the last few months, the same way they had an unspoken agreement that three lunches a week were spent in the main hall and the other two were spent in the library, or that they probably shouldn’t pass notes in Chemistry anymore, or that when Phil mentioned going travelling over summer, Dan was definitely included in those plans.

“Well done for scoring the winning goal,” he called out, as the water switched on, and he knew Dan would be smiling.

“Cheers, nerd,” Dan replied, and Phil rolled his eyes.

The first time Phil had asked Dan back to his place, he’d been terrified. Until that point, they’d spent their evenings in his bedroom, Dan despairing as he tried to teach Phil how to play some terrible football game on his games console, and then trying to annoy him while he copied up their Chemistry notes - “That sounds stupid.” “But it did go a purple-black?” “Yeah but you don’t need to compare it to the galaxy, Phil.”

Dan had stepped into Phil’s room and eyed up the posters that covered every inch of the walls, the memorabilia scattered everywhere, the giant computer screen that sat pride of place on his desk with a frankly alarming number of PC games stacked up next to it. Then he’d just turned to Phil, declared him a bigger geek than he’d even imagined, and pulled him down onto the bed.

Phil was reminded of this at Dan’s words, and he was still smiling when Dan stepped out of the shower ten minutes later.

“What’s got you smiling?” he asked curiously, changing back into his uniform ready for the walk home.

“Just laughing at your hair,” Phil said airily, and Dan narrowed his eyes at him, patting his head.

Dan straight-as-his-fringe Howell had the most adorably wavy hair, and Phil thought that was maybe his favourite part of his boyfriend, except for the smile that hadn’t changed since four years ago. The only difference now was that when Dan smiled at Phil, neither of them could mistake it for an accident.

“Shut up,” Dan grumbled, towelling it vigorously and only making it worse, or in Phil’s opinion, better. “Hey, are we still on for this weekend? You still dragging me to that convention?”

“It’s going to be amazing,” Phil grumbled, throwing a sock at Dan.

“I’m not going to fit in,” Dan informed him.

“You’ll know how I feel most of the time,” Phil teased, and Dan turned to him, rolling his eyes.

“Love you,” he reminded him.

“Love you too,” Phil grinned. The way he saw it, this couldn’t have gone much better.

**Author's Note:**

> and that’s that. i think the ending is a bit rubbish, but i feel like i could’ve ended up making this at least 10k, and then i’d still have a fic i didn’t think was great, it’d just be even longer. ALSO i’m not gonna make phan address their sexuality in all of my fics fyi, i just thought it needed it in mf, and in this fic too, for it to be kinda realistic??? idk, i just felt like i needed to say that. but in the majority of fics there will be no ‘are you?’ ‘yeah, are you?’ conversations! <3


End file.
